FDA looking at Metal to Metal hips

- May, 2011

The FDA wants companies making ‘metal on metal’ artificial hips to take a closer look at how patients fare after their hip replacement surgery.

The FDA seeks this “in response to an increasing number of consumer complaints about the implants”, along with last year’s recall of an all-metal model made by DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson.

The agency is also “asking companies to collect blood samples from patients with all-metal hip implants in order to better understand exactly how much metal may be released into the bloodstream.” Metal in the bloodsteam can cause a range of problems.